Situated in the far north of Vietnam, like some crazy uncle shoved up in the loft conversion, Hanoi is one of the most enjoyable cities I have ever visited.
Life here is so rich, so thick it is almost mesmerising. Wandering the narrow streets of the city’s Old Quarter, taking in the scenes all around you is like drinking the coffee the locals lace with condensed milk: it is so thick, so strong and delicious you can only digest a little at time.
Drink in too much and you quickly suffer from sensory overload, your brain reeling from trying to process a million beguiling sights, bewitching smells, bewildering sounds.
In Hanoi I could walk the streets for days, seeking out my fellow human beings, peeking into their lives. A Western voyeur in an another dimension, where the streets hum with humanity and life seems so much more vivid than that back home.
Tiny shop fronts heave with goods, piled up to the rafters, bearing down on their owners. Often you can discern the shopkeeper, subsumed within a mountain of their goods, dozing against a rice sack or half-buried under an avalanche of boxes.
Many streets specialise in one particular type of product. This street sells only metal articles, that one purely toys. One shop I came across seemed only to vend sellotape.
We visited street markets in backstreets, where stall keepers sat outside Chinese-style temples and faded French colonial buildings. We saw tubs of crabs, string bags full of crawling toads and ducks hanging from hooks, glazed and ready to eat.
And all around us there were the buzz of commerce and the excited chatter of the street. People crouching on tiny plastic chairs around noodle stalls, or gathering under banyan trees and ragged awnings, where the sunlight plays through in thin shafts as they deal out a deck of cards.
Cockerels strut along the pavement, kids play keepy-uppy with colourful shuttlecocks and scrawny boys roam the streets selling faux GI zippo lighters, emblazoned with US army slang.
An old woman gnaws on a stick of sugarcane whilst other similar sinewy women plough the streets carrying bamboo shoulder poles, their baskets stuffed with tropical fruits: pineapples, persimmons and oranges, jackfruit, lycees and star fruit.
My favourite are the banana ladies, offering two varieties of banana, starchy ones in one basket, the sweeter ones in the other. All wear pointy straw hats, all bounce merrily along, swaying with their load as they tout for business.
You get the impression that this is life as it has been in Hanoi for hundreds of years. It’s survived war with the Chinese, the French and the Americans, the latter of whom managed to park a huge B52 bomber in one of the city’s ponds.
But unlike in Britain there is nothing nostalgic about this life: this is raw, hard-edged commerce and for many life is tough. Ever on the lookout for a new way to make money the Vietnamese eagerly embrace the modern.
Alongside traditional lacquerware and lanterns you can buy the latest knocked-off DVD - the new Bond Film, Quantum of Solace, appearing on the streets here well before it graced cinema screens.
The roads pulse with traffic: mopeds zip along, their horns quacking like indignant Donald Ducks; cyclos crawl past, their driver eyeing you up for trade; carts groan under staggering loads, their owners blithely steering them through the maelstrom.
Even motorbikes are pressed into freight duties, piled up with mountains of boxes, weighted down with heavy appliances, balancing ladders, bamboo poles or metal rods .
Pressed into every use imaginable the omnipresent moped has taken over the streets, spilling out onto pavements, blocking access to all. We had to climb over a squadron of them, backpacks and all, simply to get to our hotel.
Faced with an ambulatory meltdown, the authorities have been forced to act, passing a new bylaw banning the two-wheelers from blocking the walkways. Clearly unworkable, this leads to comical scenes whenever a police car hoves into view up the street as moped owners dash frantically to their trusty steeds, avoiding the long arm of the law.
Even here, in this bustling urban environment, above the noise, we often heard birdsong. It reaches out across the tiny lanes, penetrates across the lines of traffic, lighting your load and bringing a smile to your face.
Gazing up at some of these tiny choristers in their ornate cages, dangling outside a shopfront I was enthusiastically greeted by their owner, a lively chap who beckoned me inside and proceeded to show me his collection of finches.
They turned out to be a prize-winning collection, successfully entered into singing contests with other birds. The man proudly showed me his finest songster and the many pennants and rosettes it had won.
His next contest came in two days: I left him to continue his preparations.
Further down the street I spotted a creature of a more familiar hue - none other than former newsreader, Michael Buerk.
Keen to secure a photo with the legendary anchor man I interrupted his holiday and introduced myself. Lara (with camera) was utterly embarrassed and sensibly retreated to the Ladies, leaving Fewins to make a fool of himself.
“We’re travelling round the world!” I blurted to the man with the famous wink, “Without flying!”.
“Good luck with your trip” he said smoothly, before diving for the safety of his tour bus. Well it was hardly as newsworthy as an African famine was it. It wouldn’t even make The Moral Maze.
Yet I remained undeterred - who needs a photo when you’ve got an endorsement like that? I’ll have to insert it at the top of our homepage: “World in Slow Motion - as endorsed by TV’s Michael Buerk!”.
Hectic street life, Michael Buerk, golly I needed a drink after that. And what else than a Bia Hoi - ’fresh beer‘ brewed locally and served up on the street, all yours for 20p.
Relax, recline on a tiny plastic playgroup chair askew the broken pavement, and try and avoid falling into the path of the traffic just inches from your elbow.
Draining the dregs from the bottom of the glass a flash of inspiration hit me. Perhaps Hanoi’s more like the local brew than a coffee: cheap, refreshing and just a little bit rough.
And unlike the coffee you’ll be wanting a refill.
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